Materials, Technology and Biomimetics as enabling tools for a new generation of Urinary Stents

Workshops

Background

Urinary stents (ureteral-urethral, polymeric-metallic), are routinely used. They have many indications, but their main function is to facilitate urine drainage, as internal scaffolds, in cases of urinary obstruction caused by lithiasis, cancer, benign disease, surgery, kidney transplant, etc. However, despite their great usefulness, urinary stents are associated to numerous side effects and complications that reduce their efficacy. This leads to a significant impairment in the patient’s quality of life and to an increase in health expenditure.
We want to carry out a joint Workshops of WG4-Biomaterials and stent coatings and WG5-Drug Eluting Stents (DESs) of our network.

WG4. Biomaterial’s and stent coating improvement. Another cause of stent complications and failure is the inappropriate choice of biomaterials and coatings. Currently, the biomaterials used to make stents do not avoid encrustation, biofilm formation and bacterial colonization. More than 70-100% of the urinary devices are colonised by bacteria. This involves health problems, a high stent replacement rate and an increase of pharmaceutical expenses for antibiotics and analgesics.

Through this Action, with the collaboration of experts in biomaterials and coatings, a Database of the suitable biomaterials for their use in the urinary tract (polymeric, non-polymeric, biodegradable, etc.) will be created. Such materials that have already been described for other uses, mostly in the cardiovascular field, which is the most developed field concerning stent biomaterials and coatings.

WG5. Drug-eluting stents. There is an absent use of drug-eluting stents in urological practice. Nevertheless, these types of stents have shown high efficacy in the cardiovascular field, minimizing the occurrence of restenosis, the major drawback of coronary interventions. These features have already been considered to cover drug-eluting stents for intracoronary use to avoid restenosis, so they could be used in urology.

Aims and Objectives

This Workshop will bring together a multidisciplinary group of researchers involved in materials-coatings and drug elutings devices in urology. The aims of the Workshop are threefold: